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University breaks ground at $37.5M parking garage site on Pitkin Street

Those driving to the Colorado State University campus will have 650 new places to park come summer.

Over the next few weeks, students will start to see dramatic changes at the new parking garage site. The South College Parking Garage is scheduled to be complete July 2016.

Contractors have started breaking ground for the new parking garage. The South College Parking Garage will be located on the southeast side of campus, next to the site for the new medical center. (Photo credit: Veronica Baas)

Located on the southeast side of campus on Pitkin Street, the garage will be four stories tall. There will also be designated spots reserved for bike parking. The project will cost a total of $37.5 million, according to the CSU website.

Project manager for the parking structure Tony Flores said construction workers are currently re-surfacing the area.

Design build teams, the combination of a contractor and a designer, bid to be hired for the project. Fred Haberecht, assistant director of Facilities Management, explained this process in more detail.

“These design build contracts are awarded based on qualifications and cost,” Haberecht said. “So, this was the contracting team that had the lowest cost with good qualifications.”

Students make changes in their daily route to accommodate the construction happening all over campus. The university apologizes for any inconveniences they have caused. (Photo credit: Veronica Baas)

The project was designed to make better use of space on campus by putting more vehicles on the same patch of land. It is also meant to replace parking spots that will be lost to various construction projects over the next few years.

Tayler Rensink, junior construction management major, said the construction on campus is inconvenient, but worth it.

“I’m looking forward towards the future not just at ‘now’ students, which I am currently and it sucks,” Rensink said. “We just have to sacrifice through it, push through it, and in the future it’s going to help out CSU a lot more.”